Time Warner Raising Rates Effective 2/1/11

[steveb]

Here is a summary that I got with my bill today:

Basic Sevice was 12.00, now 12.75
Standard was 61.95 now 67.95
Encore was 3.00, now 5.99
HD Premium Tier was 3.95 now 4.95
Digital Service bundle was 68.95, now 73.95
Surf and Talk plan stays the same.
Watch and Talk was 108.95, now 114.99
Watch and Surf was 111.95, now 118.99
All the best was 146.95, now 153.99
All the best premium was 178.95 , now 186.95.

Roadrunner Lite & Turbo, and Digital Home phone each go up four cents. Equipment rates also were adjusted by a few cents.

My bill is going up $10 per month. I'll probably drop Encore. It doesn't seem worth it at almost a dollar a channel! I use the Movie Pass channel more than I use Encore, but I think I get Movie pass automatically with HBO and Max.

Not related, I called to swap an HD box last week and they offered me Roadrunner Turbo for $5 per month for 12 months. I said go ahead and turn it on. Haven't noticed much of a difference yet.

[Brad]

As if there not making enough money awesome

[shanedude]

Called today and cancelled everything but basic cable effective Monday. Getting DSL next week. My tivo with basic and netflix. TWC doubled the rates in 10 years and cut the # of channels in standard cable package. All this in a poor economy. What ever happened to roll over or get tough? TWC gets to screw the networks (which cuts the funds they have to produce better programming) all while passing on rate increases to us? They are pocketing it all! Company shows profit (even though they lost record #s of customers). Planning on selling off their overvalued stock from my portfolio ahead of their investor meeting later this month!

[mattbanks]

Last time I called DirectTV, the total monthly cost would have gone up for everything I have (cable, internet, phone) between DirectTV and Time Warner for Internet and whoever for phone. With prices going up again, I might have to check into things again. If DirectTV ends up being the cheaper option, I'm going to go with it.

[xzi]

At this rate it will be cheaper I'd imagine. If you do decide to go with DIRECTV, let me know and I can give you my account number which will get you another $100 off.

[mattbanks]

Jan 5, 2011 10:04:53 GMT -5 xzi said:

At this rate it will be cheaper I'd imagine. If you do decide to go with DIRECTV, let me know and I can give you my account number which will get you another $100 off.

Nice! I'll make sure to post in this thread with what I'm going to do. Don't plan on calling until next week, but I'll keep you posted.

[steveb]

I called today and dropped HBO, Encore, and one converter box... I told the rep I was calling because I got my bill in the mail today. She didn't even try to save the business. Saving about $25 a month now.

[Chris Miller]

With TWC dropping customers left and right, you would think that raising the rates would be the last thing that they would want to do. In reality, losing those customers is a short term gain. It appears they can maximize the profits from the high end services with the remaining customers.

In their 3rd quarter 2010 earnings report, they reported that they lost 155,000 customers. Yet they made more money per subscriber and their profits increased by 34% during that quarter. Of the 155,000 that left, only 46,000 were digital subscribers. Most of the loses were in the cheap seats of analog cable. With the economy down, people who could barely afford cable just dropped. TWC was able to make more profit by picking up new Internet and phone accounts. CNet had a nice article on this, back in November.

As long as TWC is the only cable TV option in town, they don't need to worry about dropping the lowest paying customers. If they start dropping the full service customers at the rate, that will affect the bottom line for TWC. That and competition will be the only things that lower the rates charged by TWC.

[Skaggs]

Here's the actual chart from the TWC bill:

[the block]

that's a bunch of crap.. anyone have any luck calling up and just asking to be put on a promo rate because you feel the service is too expensive?

[BenJF3]

I have yet (in 5 years) paid more than $129 for the Triple Play. I have not paid over $6 a month for HBO, Showtime or Starz either - I always call and cancel as soon as the rate goes back to full and everytime they find some new promotional rate they can get me in.

Plus, with all the problems with Navigator, I use that as leveage too.

[Skaggs]

Called last night to try and add Home Phone to my cable + internet. I already have the 500 minute plan on Vonage for $26/month (includes all taxes and voicemail). The best they could do on the home phone was $36 / month PLUS $3.95 / mo for voicemail. That's $40 for TWC phone vs. $26 for Vonage.

I explained my situation & cost for Vonage to the TWC rep and asked him to make me an offer that would make their home phone more attractive to me, even suggesting I would lock into the price for a year. He put me on hold and came back to tell me he checked with his supervisor but there were no current offers available that would get my monthly cost any lower.

Guess they don't want my business that bad.

[Chris Miller]

Jan 9, 2011 9:14:17 GMT -5 Skaggs said:

Guess they don't want my business that bad.

That's the scary part. They don't. At this point in time, they make more profit going after premium services.

[Skaggs]

Front page article in today's Times Union:

Cable rate hike may prove costly

Time Warner’s plans to up fees comes as Verizon enters market

By LARRY RULISON, Business writer, Albany Times Union

ROTTERDAM — At a time when its biggest competitor for Internet and telephone service is getting ready to offer TV service as well, Time Warner Cable is raising rates again.

Time Warner customers got a notice with their bills this month outlining the various rate increases, which are not across the board but vary by product.

For instance, basic cable TV service is going from $12 a month to $13.20, while Time Warner’s “Watch and Surf” package, which includes TV and Internet service, is rising from $111.95 a month to $118.99 a month.

In the same notice, the company notes that customers can lower their bills by bundling TV, Internet and phone for just $99 a month. The increases take effect Feb. 1.

Time Warner’s rate increase comes as Verizon is about to start offering cable TV in the Capital Region through its FiOS fiberoptic network that is limited geographically to only a few towns.

Although FiOS is popular for its phone and ultra-fast Internet speeds, it hasn’t been adopted as widely as in other areas of the country where TV service is also offered. Verizon has gotten necessary approvals for TV service in the New York City, Buffalo, Syracuse and Poughkeepsie areas but until now had not sought agreements with towns and villages in the Albany area.

That has changed. Verizon has gotten local and state approval to offer TV in the villages of Scotia and Colonie, and it is awaiting approval from the state Public Service Commission for the town of Bethlehem, one of the areas where FiOS has the most popularity.

Verizon spokesman John Bonomo wouldn’t say what FiOS TV rates will be like, but he did say that service should be available in places like Delmar and Scotia and the village of Colonie by the end of March.

In most other markets, the Fi-OS package of TV, Internet and phone has been sold for about $99 a month, making it likely that it will be comparable with Time Warner’s current bundled offering.

Time Warner spokeswoman Lara Pritchard said that a “number of factors” led the company to raise rates, including the higher cost of programming fees and $74 million in investment in its upstate New York network. The rising fuel costs from its service trucks also played a role, as have new technology offerings such as remote DVR programming.

Pritchard cautioned that the new prices vary by product and that there is no “single, bottom-line bill” increase. She said by checking all of their options, customers can actually save money and get higher-level services.

“Our triple play bundle can save families hundreds of dollars annually— bundling gives us the opportunity to give customers more options at a better price,” Pritchard said.

Time Warner, like Verizon, does not reveal how many customers it has in this market.

Time Warner’s last rate increase was in August, when it raised Internet service fees. The last increase before that was a more wide-ranging increase about a year ago.

Reach Larry Rulison at 454-5504

[spongeworthy]

I had Directv installed last week and dropped cable tv.

Couldn't be happier ;D